The London-based bank began courting a cadre of diamond barons,
whose companies would eventually borrow billions to finance their
business of buying rough stones from miners like De Beers,
cleaning them up, and then selling them to retailers,
according to the
report.

Kishore Lall and other leaders of the diamond-lending unit pushed
ahead full steam in their initiative to be the premier
financier, ignoring warning signs and flouting risk-control
practices along the way, according to the report.

When consumer demand flagged and diamond prices dropped — they've
fallen 20% in the past few years, according to Bloomberg —
Standard Chartered was caught holding the bag on hefty sum
of bad debt.

Since 2013, Standard Chartered has booked losses of some $400
million to these clients on loans that once reached as much as $3
billion. With $1.7 billion in loans still outstanding, the losses
could rise, and CEO Bill Winters is "still trying to clean up the
mess," according to Bloomberg.